Daily Archive

One was at Promise Keepers back in the early 90’s. I went to two of those events (at the Metrodome) and the first one was at the height of it’s popularity. The Dome was full. This being true, I wonder if any of you were there and remember this. If so, let me know.

One of the first speakers told the LH story. It was fairly new back then and perhaps the majority of the men in the audience hadn’t heard it yet. It got a good response.

Imagine what went through the minds of the audience, several hours later, when the 4th (or 5th) speaker started out with “There once was a ship and the captain . . . “

You know your discomfort when a person you know starts telling you a story that he’s already told you. Fairly quickly you try to tell him, politely “Oh, I’ve already heard this one.”

Well, what if you can’t? And what if it’s sort of a long story? And what if you know that everyone else has heard the story? And what if ‘everyone else’ is five thousand people?

I don’t recall experiencing that kind of dread before or since.

Because, what are you supposed to do at the end of the story? Normally, when you’ve heard the story, you can give some kind of fake chuckle. But in this case, everyone around you would know that it’s fake.

And so, he finally, mercifully ended the story: “. . . . and the other voice came back over the radio “I’m on a lighthouse. . . . . . . .”

Silence. For too long. We didn’t know what to do. But the speaker salvaged it. Sort of.

He said, “God is the lighthouse!”

Okay, good. Here is something we can applaud. And we did, with relief.